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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29054604">Lightyears Between Us</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keylime_Pi/pseuds/Keylime_Pi'>Keylime_Pi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(Technically) Canon Compliant, Angst, Cuts, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mental Breakdown, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Punching Stuff, Revenge, Swearing, WITH the comfort thank you very much</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:21:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,308</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29054604</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keylime_Pi/pseuds/Keylime_Pi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bow and Glimmer have had a rough time getting along. Glimmer offered an olive branch, and they're finally getting their friendship back on track, but there are scars that Glimmer hasn't shown him yet.</p><p>Basically I was feeling angsty late at night so I decided Bow needed to swear</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Lightyears Between Us</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Enjoy the angst mwahaha</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Okay.” That simple word had soothed Glimmer beyond belief that evening. She had held Bow’s hands for the first time in enternity, felt his eyes on her without resentment. It was like she had died and gone to heaven.</p><p>Everything felt cold. Glimmer tore open her eyes. Bleak, white walls. The thrum of the Velvet Glove. She couldn’t even find the urge to scream. Becuase of course Bow had been a dream, of course it had all been a dream. She reached out into the space around her limply, hoping to feel something. All she felt was the stiff bed beneath her back.</p><p>Glimmer wept in silence for the longest time. She only stopped when she heard his footsteps - someone’s footsteps, but it didn’t matter, it was all Prime - coming towards her cell.</p><p> </p><p>- - -</p><p> </p><p>Bow woke up to somebody screaming. His eyes flew open. The screaming, where was that screaming?</p><p>It took only the fog of sleep lifting from his brain and another shriek to know who it was. She hadn’t screamed this bad before.</p><p>Bow was running through the hall within the next second, not bothering to get dressed. The knot in his stomach twisted thinking about all the times he’d checked on her to see her convulsing in her sleep. He’d stand by her bed and pray she was alright until, only seconds later, she stopped. And the worst part was, he never helped her.</p><p>Bow cursed himself for the thousandth time and stormed into Glimmer’s room.</p><p>“Stop!” Glimmer was lying in her bed, tossing. Her arms were held in front of her body, legs trashing violentely. “Please, stop, please! <b>Please!</b> D-don’t!”</p><p>Bow grabbed an outstretched wrist, and Glimmer screamed again. “Don’t touch me! D-don’t, please…” She whimpered and began to shrink in on herself. “Please, don’t…”</p><p>His heart pounded in his ears. She looked so…small. So weak. So not Glimmer. “Glim? Glim, it’s me, Bow.”</p><p>“No, you’re not Bow.” Glimmer slowly opened her eyes. They were watering, and Bow wanted to throw up. She didn’t deserve to look so beaten down. “You’re not Bow,” she hissed again. “Y-you can’t lie to me. You’re not Bow.”</p><p>“Glimmer - ”</p><p>“Get the fuck <b>off of me!</b>”</p><p>Glimmer’s fist struck hard into Bow. He was sent flying backwards into the wall of the room. His whole face was burning with the reverb of the punch, and for a minute Bow was sure she’d broken his jaw. “Glimmer, please, it’s me.”</p><p>“You can’t lie to me, you motherfucking bastard!” Glimmer was getting up now, her eyes burning with flames known only to hell. “D-do what you want to me, but don’t you dare <b>fucking </b>say it was Bow! I won’t believe you, not after the last time!”</p><p>Bow held is jaw. <em>Last time?</em></p><p>“Only <b>you</b> could be such a vile piece of living garbage.” Bow looked up at her. Something clicked in her gaze. “...Bow?”</p><p>“You had a nightmare,” he mumbled, still half-trying to peice together her ramblings. “I heard you screaming.”</p><p>“Wh-what?” Glimmer looked around rapidly. She reached out to touch everything, looking like she didn’t believe in it until she could feel it. “This…you saved me…I’m…” A sob shatterd her chest. “Oh my gods. Oh my gods…”</p><p>“Y-you’re safe, Glim. It’s okay.” Bow slowly stood and walked towards her. “It’s okay.”</p><p>Glimmer turned away from him. He reached out his arms but… he drew them back to his sides.</p><p>“You didn’t have to check up on me.”</p><p>A pang. Bow looked away. “You would’ve woken up everybody else,” he joked.</p><p>“Mmph. Sorry.”</p><p>“No, that was - ” Bow sighed. Everything used to make so much more sense. He yearned for the days when he could just reach out and hold her, like there wasn’t lightyears between them and broken memories lacing every conversation.</p><p>“Why are you still here?” She held herself so small - she could dissapear any second.</p><p>“Are you okay?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>Bow chewed his bottom lip. He wanted to say it, so badly, tell her he knew that wasn't the truth. He reached out his hand again. He stopped.</p><p>“You can go.”</p><p>She was crying. Bow could always hear when Glimmer was crying. “Do…do I have to?”</p><p>“Why would you want to stay?”</p><p>“I couldn’t sleep,” Bow lied.</p><p>Glimmer snorted. She could always hear when Bow was lying. “Right.”</p><p>Bow hesitated. “You…you don’t have to tell me, but…what did you mean by, ‘not after the last time?’ Did…Prime, did he pretend to be me?”</p><p>Glimmer tensed.</p><p>“Glimmer?”</p><p>Another sob. Glimmer started to shake. Bow quickly reached out, and didn’t stop this time when he touched her sholuders. Glimmer screamed, grabbing his hand and squeezing so tight he swore it might come off. She sounded like the ghost in those stories his dads used to tell, the ones who came back to kill off campers in their sleep. The ones tortured for eternity.</p><p>Bow fought down tears. “Glimmer, what did he do to you?”</p><p>“He…” Glimmer sobbed again. She thrust out her arm and yanked down her glove.</p><p>Bow didn’t believe it at first. Her skin, her beautiful skin, tore apart by thin, long cuts. His hand hovered over arm. Her beautiful skin…</p><p>The next thing Bow knew he was punching the wall and nearly tearing Glimmer’s door off the handles. “Kill him! I’ll <b>FUCKING KILL HIM!</b>”</p><p>“Bow!”</p><p>“<b>I’ll fucking KILL HIM!”</b></p><p>“Bow!”</p><p>Her voice trailed off as Bow careened down the hall towards the control panel. He grabbed at the controls, mind a blur. “The Velvet Glove, take us to the Velvet Glove, dammit!”</p><p>“BOW!” Two arms wrapped around his middle.</p><p>“<b>He’s gonna DIE for hurting you!” </b>His knuckles turned white against the control panel. His vision was starting to blur with tears, but it didn’t matter anyways, all he saw was red.</p><p>“Bow, stop, <em>please</em>!”</p><p>His breath hitched. She sounded like she had in her nightmare, begging for it to end. And <em>he’d</em> made her sound like that. His heartbeat grew quieter in his ears. His grip loosened. Bow melted against Glimmer’s embrace, turning into a bawling mess as he slid to the floor with her.</p><p>“Glimmer…” He turned and wrapped his fingers gently around her hands. Bow brought them up to his face. She was here, she was real, alive, touching him, it would all be okay.</p><p>Still, he could see the cuts.</p><p>“I’m so sorry, Glimmer, I’m so so sorry,” he wailed. Bow leaned his forehead into hers. She was sobbing, too, now. “I…I was so horrible to you, and you…he did this to you! Glimmer, I…”</p><p>“You had every right to be mad, I was awful! I - ” Glimmer retracted one hand from his face and stared at the lines. “I deserve this…”</p><p>“No! No, you don’t! No one deserve’s this, Glimmer, least of all you!” It wasn’t fair she thought of herself this way, none of this was fair. Bow took back her hand. “You…gods, Glimmer, you deserve the world, you-you don’t deserve this!”</p><p>Big magenta eyes slowly looked up into his. He could drown in those eyes. “Bow…”</p><p>“I’m never gonna let anybody hurt you again, understand?” Bow wrapped his arms around, hugged her tightly to his chest.</p><p>“Bow…”</p><p>“Never.” He buried his face into her hair as her breathing began to go normal.</p><p>“I’ve never seen you like this…”</p><p>“I’m sorry if I scared you. I just…” He inhaled sharply. “You’re the most important person in the world to me and I…I don’t want you to get hurt. Ever.”</p><p>Glimmer’s fists clenched agianst his back. “Even after…?”</p><p>“Of course even after! You’re never going to stop being important to me, Glimmer. I love you.”</p><p>Glimmer broke down into another fit of crying. So he just held her for a while, like the lightyears were shrinking, and the broken memories were sewing themselves back together.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please appreciate that in the first draft of this, it read, ' "Okay." Those simple words had soothed Glimmer beyond belief. ' Yeah apparently don't know what plurals are anymore so that's fun</p></blockquote></div></div>
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